Rasmussen smiled down at me and said, “You feeling okay? Recovered from last night?” I didn’t look up, but I nodded. “Glad to hear it,” he said, and him and his clipboard moved over to a group of mothers with decorated baby buggies. Too bad Rasmussen liked to murder and molest girls because if he didn’t he probably would’ve been considered a good egg. That’s why Junie and Sara went off with him, because I also learned from those movies that when a crime was committed it was always somebody that nobody suspected. Like Jeeves, the good egg butler.
The smell of hot dogs and hamburgers and Italian sausage and bratwurst on the grills hung in the air even though it was early in the morning. After the sack races, Troo and me planned to eat so much food they’d have to take us home in a coaster wagon. Like camels, we’d be able to go a few more days without eating, and then on Thursday night Willie had invited us to have supper with him and his ma and Officer Riordan, who I thought I would tell about Rasmussen after all. If the timing was right.
Over thirty kids had entered but everybody there could tell right off that this was a two-horse race, just like it’d been last year. Troo was smiling at one of the judges, who was Mary Lane’s father. I guessed since the zoo was right next door, maybe since he wasn’t feeding Sampson, they made him come over and judge the bike-decorating contest.
Mr. Lane was looking over Artie Latour’s bike. Holy Ma gillacuddy! Artie had really gone all out. Way out! He had streamers trailing off his handlebars and baseball cards in the spokes and sitting in his basket was a giant cardboard picture of Abraham Lincoln, who looked—I’d never noticed this before—quite a lot like Nana Fazio, but much, much taller.
Mr. Lane came up to us and said, “How’s your mother feeling?” He bent down to look at the flowers that Rasmussen had taped back on Troo’s handlebars.
Putting on her absolutely best manners and her dolly voice, Troo said, “She’s doing fine, Mr. Lane. Thank you so much for asking.”
“Top-notch decorating, Troo. Top-notch.” Mr. Lane wrote something on his clipboard and moved down the line.
The loudspeaker crackled again and the man said, “Five minutes, judges. Five minutes left.”
Greasy Al Molinari was sitting on a picnic table using his switchblade to carve something into the brown wood. Troo couldn’t take her eyes off of him even after Rasmussen went over and started talking to him. I watched as Greasy Al slapped his switchblade knife into Rasmussen’s hand and limped off toward the Honey Creek, kicking Troo’s crushed-up crown along the ground.
“Before the sack race, let’s go down to the creek and cool off, okay?” Troo said, wiping the sweat off her forehead with her arm.
“Yeah, the creek sounds real good.” I knew she might lose this year because Artie’s bike was a lollapalooza and I would’ve done anything to make her feel better, even go down to the creek with her and throw stones at Greasy Al.
The loudspeaker buzzed back on. “All right, everybody, all the judging is final. If you hear your name, please go over to the judges’ table next to the picnic area to pick up your prize.”
Wendy Latour won the prize for the best-decorated wagon. When she saw me she sang, “Thally O’Malley. Hi . . . hi . . . hi,” and then threw me some of her Dinah Shore USA kisses.
Mr. Mahlberg, who was doing the announcing, told everyone that some kid I didn’t know named Billy Quigley won for best tricycle. And then he said, “The twelve and unders were tough this year. Real tough.”
Oh no
.
Oh no
.
Poor Troo
. “Will Artie Latour and Troo O’Malley please come to the judges’ table?”
Of course I went with, and when we got there, Mr. Lane smiled and said, “Congratulations, Troo. You and Artie tied.” I thought the judges made it into a tie like that because our mother was dying, because Artie really deserved that first place. But a tie was good. That way nobody was going to spend the rest of the day shooting daggers out of their eyes at one another. But Troo wasn’t any too happy with that tie. I could tell by her too-wide, fake smile. “Go claim your prize,” Mr. Lane said, pointing behind us.
A big Kenfield’s Five and Dime banner hung behind the prize table. Mrs. Callahan was congratulating the winners.
“Hello, girls,” she said when we came up. “Congratulations, Troo.”
Betty Callahan got up from the folding chair and put her arms around us. She had on a sleeveless white blouse, navy Bermuda shorts and gold earrings. She also had a lot of oomph in her hair that she had recently changed. “You two doin’ all right?” she asked.
Mrs. Callahan smelled so good that I almost started crying, but then I looked over at Troo and she shot me a don’t-you-dare look. She must’ve also smelled that Evening in Paris.
“I visited your mother yesterday,” Mrs. Callahan said.
Troo was getting antsy, looking over at the prize table and not even listening. I knew what she had her eye on. It was a genuine Davy Crockett coonskin cap. Being the lover of hats that she was, she’d been admiring them up at the Five and Dime for the last week and now Artie Latour was running his hand through the fur.
“My sister, Margie, who’s a nurse up at St. Joe’s, told me that Helen is holding her own,” Mrs. Callahan said.
Troo wandered toward the prize table and got up right behind Artie and whispered something in his ear. Probably threatening to drown him in the Honey Creek if he didn’t let her have that coonskin cap.
“You sure everything is okay at your house, Sal?”
“Everything is fine, Mrs. Callahan.” Now Artie had that coonskin in his hand and Troo was grabbing the coonskin tail and if I didn’t do something, this would turn into the kind of roll-around-on-the-ground fight that Troo had a bad reputation for.
I started to hurry toward them, but then I stopped and turned my head back to Mrs. Callahan. “Is that true what you just said about Mother? That she’s holding her own?” I wasn’t sure what that meant but it sounded pretty good and I wished she really was holding her own. Mrs. Callahan looked me directly in the eye and couldn’t say another word, so I pretty much knew she was just saying that to make me feel better.
“Fight!”
I turned and there were Artie and Troo wrestling and rolling in the dirt. She had the coonskin cap tucked under her arm and wouldn’t give it up, and then she kicked Artie a good one in the leg right before Mr. Lane came by to pull her off. Mr. Lane picked up the coonskin and set it on Troo’s head. I looked back at Artie Latour doubled over on the ground holding his leg. His shirt had got ripped and dirt caked his sweaty arms, and I thought in some special way our mother dying was working out okay for us because we were gettin’ cut all sorts of slack.
Troo was thinking the exact same thing. Because she got up off the ground, flipped the coonskin tail at Artie and took off laughing, waving her ice cream torch back and forth and yelling, “Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled messes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
For fifteen minutes or so I lost Troo in all the red, white and blue, so I had a nice visit with Ethel, who had the day off from taking care of Mrs. Galecki. Ethel’d come with her gentleman friend named Mr. Raymond Buckland Johnson, who said we could call him Ray Buck for short. He was from the South just like Ethel. Georgia, I think he said. Ray Buck was a city bus driver and his skin was as black as a bad luck cat. Much blacker than Ethel, who was the color of a Hershey bar. Ray Buck was also tall, thin and a little hunched over in the shoulders, so when he turned sideways he looked like a question mark. Troo and me, we just adored Ethel and were getting to know Ray Buck a little bit better and were beginning to adore him as well.
Some people around here didn’t like the Negroes. Like Hall. And Reese Latour, who called me and Troo nigger lovers every chance he got. Troo and me had asked Ethel about why that was. She’d told us she didn’t know why for certain, but that it was true that some white folks didn’t care too much for coloreds. Down in the South there was even this club called the KKK that was really mean to Negroes. They dressed up in sheets and burned crosses on the Negroes’ front lawns to hurt their feelings, which made me wonder for a second if Rasmussen belonged to the KKK because of that pillowcase he had on his head when he’d tried to grab me at the Fazios’.
“So, Miss Sally, how’s your mama doin’?” Ethel asked, after she suggested that Ray Buck go off to the refreshment stand to get her a cool drink. Ethel always called us Miss Troo or Miss Sally because she had the best manners and liked manners in others. I just loved to listen to her talk. She was another one with an accent, but not like Willie’s Brooklyn one or the Goldmans’ German one, which were hard sounding, like they were just about to get in a fight with you. Ethel’s accent flowed like the Honey Creek water, and one time when I was helping her hull strawberries for shortcake I fell dead asleep on the kitchen chair because come to think of it, that’s what her voice really sounded like. A lullaby.
“Mrs. Callahan just told me that Mother is holding her own, Ethel, thank you for asking,” I said.
I pulled myself up onto the first limb of the tree that Ethel was sitting under, so I could get a better lookout for Troo.
“That so? Your mama’s holdin’ her own? Well, Lordy, that is good news to these tired ears.” Ethel was below me in a plastic chair, barefoot and fanning herself with a newspaper, which she said she liked to read because it was important to be educated to the goings-on. She turned to gaze up at me. “How come you and Miss Troo ain’t been by lately?”
“We been busy.” I wanted to tell Ethel how Rasmussen was trying to murder and molest me and I hadn’t felt much like coming by since she lived right next door to him. But as Mother always said, there was a time and place for everything. “How is Mrs. Galecki feeling?”
“She’s been askin’ for you. And so has Mr. Gary.”
“Mr. Gary’s here?” I asked, excited.
Mrs. Galecki’s son, Mr. Gary Galecki, lived in California and would come and see his mother every summer. The last time he was here he played old maid with me and Troo for over two hours out on the screened-in porch and that made Troo say that she thought Mr. Gary especially must like kids because damn, you couldn’t hardly get a grown-up to do anything with you at all. Mr. Gary Galecki was another good egg.
“Mr. Gary’s feelin’s are real hurt that you and Miss Troo ain’t stopped by to say hey.” Ethel looked scrumptious today. She had on a little straw hat with creamy pansy flowers and her dress was lemon colored and made her chocolate skin really stand out quite nicely. That’s why Ray Buck was looking at Ethel the way he was when he brought her back a cup of iced tea. She really did look good enough to eat. Ray Buck could see we were visiting so after he gave Ethel her drink and a wink, he moved over to the side with his smooth walk and lit up a cigarette with a snap of his lighter.
“We’ll come by real soon, I promise. Troo was just tellin’ me today how much she was looking forward to seeing Mr. Gary.”
“All right then, I’ll tell him he can be expectin’ you.” Ethel took a long drink out of her cup and then moved around in her chair a little to get comfortable because she believed in being as comfortable as possible at all times. Life had enough uncomfortable in it, she always said.
“Are you little gals bein’ careful? I been readin’ in the newspaper that there’s a crazy man out there and I heard tell that somebody grabbed at you over at the Fazios’ yard the other night. You best pay attention when you’re out and about.” Ethel sounded like she knew what it meant to be grabbed at. “Alls I gotta say is thank the Lord that Mr. Rasmussen lives next door to me. Gives me a feelin’ of such safety.”
Should I tell her? Shouldn’t I tell Ethel, my dear Negro friend, how very smart she was about certain things like how to take care of sick people and how to make the best blond brownies and how she had the singing voice of all the cherubs in heaven, but that she was wrong, dead wrong, about Rasmussen?
I looked out over the crowd while I was deciding about that and spotted Troo’s Statue of Liberty torch. She was talking to Uncle Paulie, who probably wasn’t working today at Jerbak’s Beer ’n Bowl setting up pins for one dollar and ten cents an hour because the lanes were closed for the Fourth like everything else was. The other thing Uncle Paulie did to make money for himself and Granny was collect soda bottles out of people’s garbage cans and take them to Delancey’s Corner Store. Mrs. Delancey gave him two pennies for the bottles and Uncle Paulie always counted them real carefully, like maybe Mrs. Delancey was trying to gyp him.
Uncle Paulie was looking at the ground and pointing at something. Troo bent down and handed it to him, and then he ran around her and put his hands over her eyes. I could see his mouth moving. I knew he was saying “Peek-a-boo.” Troo pushed his fingers off her face and ran.
“Did you hear what I said, Miss Sally?”
“Pardon me?” I had to use manners around Ethel or she would get after me.
Ethel sighed, and when she did her bosoms went up and down just like Artie Latour’s Adam’s apple. “I said you and Miss Troo should come over to see the puppy that Officer Rasmussen got. I know how Troo is still missin’ that Butchy dog of hers.” She had probably told him about how we had to leave Butchy out on the farm. Rasmussen probably bought that puppy to trick me into trusting him. It was common knowledge that me and Troo had a fondness for animals of all kinds.
“What happened to Officer Rasmussen’s wife?” I asked before I had even figured out I was gonna do that.
Ethel turned quickly back toward me. “Dave Rasmussen don’t have a wife. He’s a bachelor man.”
“Why do you think he doesn’t have a wife?” I was swinging my feet back and forth up in that tree. I was getting nervous now, talking about Rasmussen, because I already knew why he didn’t have a wife. Rasmussen didn’t like wives. Rasmussen liked little girls. From up in the tree crook, I could see what everybody was doin’. Troo had found Willie. They were holding hands, walking toward the gully that led down to the Honey Creek.